San Francisco. I was at Fort Point eyeing the surf because Ocean Beach was blown out, meaning the onshore winds were ripping up the waves so that it looked like a field of pulled strips of cotton across the confused blue eyes of a woman I once loved. I wanted to surf and Fort Point is usually wind protected.
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I leaned against the rusted fender of my old ride, and with crossed arms was debating on paddling out or not. The waves diminish in size (compared to Ocean Beach) as they make their way through the Gate and then around the 270 degree turn before they break over the rocks. This emasculates them, weakens them as a man crawling the last mile to his own death, a couple hundred feet shy of a lady with saddened blue eyes.
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The elder in the photo is a woman who approached from the cliffs and down the narrow walkway next to the surf. She used her walker with little effort with her gaze fixed to the Bridge. She was serene and lovely, in a hat which was fashioned after a strawberry. Olive complected, and layered in many different wraps of orange and dark reds underneath her coat, she was completely alone but moving with a certitude that put my heart at ease and sparked that curiosity of which I’ll never rid myself.
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As she grew nearer to me, my attention turned from the rocks and the water to her countenance. Her dark skin was smooth as stones from a riverbed, or perhaps undersea. The smoothness gave way to deepened smile lines and I followed those rivers to the sea of her eyes.
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Her eyes were a brilliant sapphire, the color of an engagement ring I once gave a woman who had distrusting bourbon brown eyes. The elder’s eyes were brilliant, as if her entire life’s living was distilled and poured into them. They widened with kindness when they met my green eyes, which were recovering from nearly turning bourbon brown at one point a few years back.
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We exchanged no words; the smile was enough. I knew, and she knew.
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She went several feet further and then turned to face the boys in the water, the stretch of Bay reaching past Crissy Field, and in the far distance, the City gleaming in the late afternoon sun.
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Two nights ago I climbed the steps of Grace Cathedral on Nob Hill. It was midnight and I held the hand of a beautiful woman, who had eyes so dark I could only see their depths in the bright sunshine of day. We had seen a man playing guitar by himself and wanted to be a part of his gift to the night. In between songs, he volunteered that playing guitar was what kept him “together.” I knew immediately, before immediately, what he was talking about. It is the same with photography. It is the same when I saw this elder with her eyes filled with eternity. And it was an honor to photograph her as she turned to fill them once again, to top them off, with the beauty of our City.
Farewell to All That 